Currently produced semiconductor mounting and matching structures utilize costly precision assembly techniques for providing high sensitivities to input signals over only a limited range of frequencies. In such assemblies, the semiconductor devices are internally embedded in the impedance transforming structure preventing field replacement, thus making repair very costly, and generally resulting in loss of the assembly upon the failure of the semiconductor device. Other structures such as those provided with diode modules, generally include components within the modules which are semi-lumped resulting in a quasi-TEM mode of signal transmission. This mode of transmission leads to non-ideal behavior of the assembly which behavior is characterized by performance which degrades with increasing signal frequency.
Prior to current designs, packaged diodes were utilized. Such packages possessed parasitic reactive elements which when combined with the parasitic elements of the diode, severely restricted the operating bandwidth. The utilization of such diode packages also generally required the tuning of the assembly after replacement and restricted their use to narrow band applications. For wide-band applications, prior art devices have utilized resistive components in series with the diodes, resulting in loss of sensitivity.